April Fools' Or Should Wayland Switch Away From Using C?

[microcode]

Why would it involve any "switch away"? The wayland protocol is not C-specific, Wayland protocol definitions are XML which is translated automatically into the required stubs by a scanner. There's also a native D protocol implementation.

[Tomin]

that bearded Finn that developed a kernel in C in as late as 1991

Who's that? I'm not aware of any bearded Finn that developed a kernel in 1991, but then again, I don't know all the Finns, so maybe there is one of those too. But I wouldn't call Linus bearded.

[Kendji]

Haven't you heard of Linus Torvalds? Lol.

[Luke_Wolf]

Does anybody here believe that the quality of software depends on the features of a programming language rather than on the abilities of the developers?

Does anyone here believe that the quality of of a construction project would differ if the workers were given coins instead of power drills? Of course tools and their features matter. Only an imbecile thinks otherwise.

[bug77]

This is clear to me that this was "one" of the (pseudo-) reasons why c was chosen, but I think the real/main reason was that the "wayland" developers grew up with c ! There is so much software in the unix world that is written in c that should have been written with c++ from the beginning. As far as I understand mir is based on c++ [I didn't check it closer since I don't like their license].
Check how many microcontrollers are written in c, and how horrible the code looks.
I have written a framework in c++14, that let's me write beautiful code that is very short (compared to c code), very expressive, easy to maintain.
Why nearly all use c? I guess because they were (like me) teached like this [and then these guys are also writing tutorials also in c, and the new generation is also used to write c code. It take some thinking to notice: why, c++ works in that case even better, I have code generation at compile time, I can use constexpr to have also evaluation at compile time - means, I can getter faster code than with c, etc...... Imagine also the benefits of c++17.....

I would like to see that the linux world starts to rewrite old code - so that we can build on safer libraries. Let's stop with c, and use it just in very specific places. You even don't need c for writing the kernel: check out for example this: http://okmij.org/ftp/cpp-digest/toy_OS.txt

cipri

1. Yes, people tend to stick with what they know.
2. People could write clean code in C long before they could write clean code in C++.
3. Everybody knows the kernel would be in a better place if it was written in Linux. Nobody dared take the task of rewriting it on.
4. Stop thinking you can show people their erroneous ways and you'll be in much, much better place. Pointing out errors id fine; insisting on the idea (or trying to make your point in an o random internet forum), not so much.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

This is clear to me that this was "one" of the (pseudo-) reasons why c was chosen, but I think the real/main reason was that the "wayland" developers grew up with c ! There is so much software in the unix world that is written in c that should have been written with c++ from the beginning. As far as I understand mir is based on c++ [I didn't check it closer since I don't like their license].
Check how many microcontrollers are written in c, and how horrible the code looks.
I have written a framework in c++14, that let's me write beautiful code that is very short (compared to c code), very expressive, easy to maintain.
Why nearly all use c? I guess because they were (like me) teached like this [and then these guys are also writing tutorials also in c, and the new generation is also used to write c code. It take some thinking to notice: why, c++ works in that case even better, I have code generation at compile time, I can use constexpr to have also evaluation at compile time - means, I can getter faster code than with c, etc...... Imagine also the benefits of c++17.....

I would like to see that the linux world starts to rewrite old code - so that we can build on safer libraries. Let's stop with c, and use it just in very specific places. You even don't need c for writing the kernel: check out for example this: http://okmij.org/ftp/cpp-digest/toy_OS.txt

cipri

Without out the recent updates to C++ post 2003 and the advent of LLVM/Clang upping the game and forcing GCC to modernize no one in their right mind would have jumped on B B. Stroustrup's C++ as the future of OOA/OOD.

The book that turned me immediately off to programming for a long time after starting off with C was Classic Data Structures in C++ by Timothy A. Budd. One giant bag of hurt.

People seem to think C is still the C89 standard when it's C11. I'd rather see the optional C11 features, including built-in bounds checking implemented to update all C implementations of well tested APIs before moving to C++11/14/17/20/whatTheEffEver.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

Does anyone here believe that the quality of of a construction project would differ if the workers were given coins instead of power drills? Of course tools and their features matter. Only an imbecile thinks otherwise.

Piss poor analogy and one that doesn't refute that a person who is a master craftsman can build a plumb and true home to specs w/ or w/o advanced power tools. More to the point, having built homes power tools speed up the process, not force one to rethink how to build a home. A seasoned developer who fully understands the architecture behind the problem can implement a quality solution in any language that meets the problems requirements.

Reinventing the wheel with 50 different languages won't change the fact the people doing so don't fully match the talents of the architect solving the problem(s).

[Tomin]

Haven't you heard of Linus Torvalds? Lol.

Was that addressed to me? Sure I have, but Linus never had beard AFAIK.

[Luke_Wolf]

Piss poor analogy and one that doesn't refute that a person who is a master craftsman can build a plumb and true home to specs w/ or w/o advanced power tools. More to the point, having built homes power tools speed up the process, not force one to rethink how to build a home. A seasoned developer who fully understands the architecture behind the problem can implement a quality solution in any language that meets the problems requirements.

Reinventing the wheel with 50 different languages won't change the fact the people doing so don't fully match the talents of the architect solving the problem(s).

Except you're wrong. A seasoned developer can implement it in most languages (not all by far, structured turing-complete languages are generally a minimum requirement), however there's going to be a difference in quality, and time to production between them. Some languages remove entire classes of bugs that make the solution in that language higher quality than others, because you know it can't have those defects, defects that you know... happen to be extraordinarily common and the number one causes of all security issues in software written in the other language.

This age old adage is BULLSHIT and software development is the only field that imbeciles come crawling out of the woodworks to smear this in faces while not knowing what the hell they're talking about. Skill matters, but so do tools.

[timtas]

Who's that? I'm not aware of any bearded Finn that developed a kernel in 1991, but then again, I don't know all the Finns, so maybe there is one of those too. But I wouldn't call Linus bearded.

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. Nowadays, people are assumed to be bearded dinosaurs from the Nineties if they don't rewrite everything in rust, don't host their projects on github or don't unconditionally sing-in to some other over-hyped, revolutionary new wine-skin.
Already back then, Linus Torvalds was heavily criticized by some so-called experts on kernel development for going for a totally out-dated monolithic kernel design, as opposed to the clearly superior micro-kernel approach that maybe just had some very minor, soon-to-be-solved perfomance issues. Somehow, this came to my mind.